Sligh, Clarissa

The American Dream promises that if you work hard and persevere there are no limits to what you can accomplish. Clarissa Sligh rode the crest of the dream through an education that includes an MBA, and a successful career as a financial analyst on Wall Street. The dream did not reveal that hard work would not overcome the sexist attitudes and token gestures of inclusion she experienced in the corporate world. Her burgeoning understanding of how her own growing internalized sexism and racism were helping perpetuate these attitudes eventually convinced her to leave the business world to return to her art work.

This search for identity began with a reexamination of her past. As the keeper of her family album of photographs, Sligh began to explore the differences between the impression projected in the best-foot-forward posture of her family snapshots, and her memories of the secrets that were hidden among those images. Sligh began to remember a shared bed with a brother, the illicit intentions of an uncle, the comfort of her grandmother's kitchen and the confusing wonder of a home birth. By combining the snapshots that these memories referenced with hand written words Sligh creates a new framework for her memories and identifies a starting point to gain a richer scope of the influences and attitudes that designed her identity.

The high contrast of her cyanotype and Van Dyke brown prints obscure the nuances present in the original snapshots. Words replace those missing details with verbal pictures that often force us to read around corners or follow the flow of text as it winds across the surface of the picture, underscoring that getting the right information is often a struggle. Abstracted from their original place in her family album and embellished with the words of the artist they become a record that accepts the frailties and secrets of her family. By presenting this completed, yet still fractured picture of herself and her family, Sligh creates an empowering sense of self connection that offers a full and rich view of the human condition, moving beyond the crippled identity that society had reserved for her specifically and for African Americans in general.

Extending her inquiries beyond the family Sligh also investigates formative materials from her past. In her reworking of the universal reading primer Dick and Jane, Sligh questions the values and expectations inherent in the exploits, the dress, the language, and the class and race exclusions presented in this passive but influential learner. She refocuses Dick and Jane, as an obstruction to self knowledge and learning, revealing the saccharine life of Dick and Jane and Spot as an inevitable measure that she and countless others were destined to fall short of.

The Dick and Jane series takes many forms from small edition books to large gallery installations. The series, like the process of learning the book is supposed to encourage, continues to evolve and change. One of Sligh's more ambitious undertakings is a suite of large cyanotype prints titled 'Reading Dick and Jane With Me.' The prints from the series reproduced in this catalogue were exhibited at galleries from New York to San Francisco. At each site the prints were pinned to the wall and gallery patrons were provided crayons to write on the prints. The anonymous additions of drawings and words extend and further personalize the notion of identity that Sligh began, adding evidence to the confusion we encounter in our search for an identity.

Sligh invites us to look closer at the posed facades and readymade ideals in the pictures that make up the memories of our lives. Her work tells us that we often see who we are told to see, feel what we are told to feel, and know what we are told to know. She also tells us that when we are told these things often enough, we become convinced that they are true. In this process of false fulfillment the substance of our memories is disengaged and we are restricted by the images we are forced to accept.

Jeffrey Hoone (c)1991

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The American Dream promises that if you work hard and persevere there are no limits to what you can accomplish. Clarissa Sligh rode the crest of the dream through an education that includes an MBA, and a successful career as a financial analyst on Wall Street. The dream did not reveal that hard work would not overcome the sexist attitudes and token gestures of inclusion she experienced in the corporate world. Her burgeoning understanding of how her own growing internalized sexism and racism were helping perpetuate these attitudes eventually convinced her to leave the business world to return to her art work.

This search for identity began with a reexamination of her past. As the keeper of her family album of photographs, Sligh began to explore the differences between the impression projected in the best-foot-forward posture of her family snapshots, and her memories of the secrets that were hidden among those images. Sligh began to remember a shared bed with a brother, the illicit intentions of an uncle, the comfort of her grandmother's kitchen and the confusing wonder of a home birth. By combining the snapshots that these memories referenced with hand written words Sligh creates a new framework for her memories and identifies a starting point to gain a richer scope of the influences and attitudes that designed her identity.

The high contrast of her cyanotype and Van Dyke brown prints obscure the nuances present in the original snapshots. Words replace those missing details with verbal pictures that often force us to read around corners or follow the flow of text as it winds across the surface of the picture, underscoring that getting the right information is often a struggle. Abstracted from their original place in her family album and embellished with the words of the artist they become a record that accepts the frailties and secrets of her family. By presenting this completed, yet still fractured picture of herself and her family, Sligh creates an empowering sense of self connection that offers a full and rich view of the human condition, moving beyond the crippled identity that society had reserved for her specifically and for African Americans in general.

Extending her inquiries beyond the family Sligh also investigates formative materials from her past. In her reworking of the universal reading primer Dick and Jane, Sligh questions the values and expectations inherent in the exploits, the dress, the language, and the class and race exclusions presented in this passive but influential learner. She refocuses Dick and Jane, as an obstruction to self knowledge and learning, revealing the saccharine life of Dick and Jane and Spot as an inevitable measure that she and countless others were destined to fall short of.

The Dick and Jane series takes many forms from small edition books to large gallery installations. The series, like the process of learning the book is supposed to encourage, continues to evolve and change. One of Sligh's more ambitious undertakings is a suite of large cyanotype prints titled 'Reading Dick and Jane With Me.' The prints from the series reproduced in this catalogue were exhibited at galleries from New York to San Francisco. At each site the prints were pinned to the wall and gallery patrons were provided crayons to write on the prints. The anonymous additions of drawings and words extend and further personalize the notion of identity that Sligh began, adding evidence to the confusion we encounter in our search for an identity.

Sligh invites us to look closer at the posed facades and readymade ideals in the pictures that make up the memories of our lives. Her work tells us that we often see who we are told to see, feel what we are told to feel, and know what we are told to know. She also tells us that when we are told these things often enough, we become convinced that they are true. In this process of false fulfillment the substance of our memories is disengaged and we are restricted by the images we are forced to accept.